Chapter 97 : Chapter 97
Volume 2
Chapter 21 : The Shadows in the Depths
“Looks like you’ve run into some trouble.”
The maid suddenly felt cold.
A cold that seeped into her very bones.
She stiffly raised her head and looked forward.
Selicia was holding the unconscious Muen in her arms, while howling wind and snow swirled around her.
Her killing intent burst from her body without end, like a dam that had collapsed.
“Do you need me to help you deal with this trouble?”
Selicia raised a hand, her gaze as cold and hard as iron.
“Deal with—you.”
The maid’s eyes widened abruptly.
Without the flames of the King of Withering, that terrifying chill invaded her body in an instant.
Pure white frost began at the dagger and spread steadily toward her body. Within a few breaths, her entire arm had already frozen solid.
“Damn it.”
A savage look suddenly twisted across the maid’s face.
She now understood that, because Muen Campbell had thrown himself forward to stop her at the cost of his life, her assassination mission had already failed.
Although the sudden disappearance of those flames bothered her, now was not the time to think about such things.
She could not stay here any longer!
Gritting her teeth, she used her only movable left hand to crush her own frozen right arm.
At the same time, an egg-sized sphere dropped by her feet, then exploded in an instant.
White smoke that could obscure both sight and perception immediately filled the room.
Selicia’s eyes narrowed slightly.
The wind and snow raged, quickly dispersing the smoke, but the maid was already gone from the room.
“She escaped?”
Selicia looked toward the shattered window, and a trace of mockery suddenly flashed through her eyes.
“No, she can’t escape.”
“Who do you think this place belongs to?”
...
“Damn that Muen Campbell!”
The maid... no, the assassin codenamed Number Eight, was covering her severed arm with one hand as she fled in a miserable state along the shadows at the base of the manor walls.
“I was only one step away...”
“If I had known, I should have killed him first, even if he wasn’t the mission target!”
Number Eight’s heart was full of resentment.
An almost perfect operation had been ruined at the last moment by the sudden interference of some insignificant insect. Anyone would be furious.
But fortunately... it was not over yet.
Number Eight lowered her eyes, listening to the sound of blood dripping to the ground and feeling the intense pain caused by her mutilated limb.
Yet at this moment, she actually felt a trace of relief.
That was right, relief.
“Ever since Number Nine died, have I even started to fear death?”
Number Eight laughed at herself.
But she quickly suppressed those emotions she should not have had and focused once more on the flight that was still not over.
...
...
“I seem to have heard someone say she was going to do something to my precious son?”
Number Eight’s fleeing steps came to an abrupt halt.
She had no choice but to stop, because someone was standing directly in front of her.
A man with the majesty of a lion.
“【Lion King】, Lorne Campbell?”
Number Eight’s face turned deathly pale in an instant.
“Oh? I didn’t expect a guest like you to remember such an insignificant title of mine.”
Lorne Campbell reeked of alcohol.
He had only just returned from that “battlefield” surrounded by greedy hyenas, and he still held an exquisite stemmed wine glass in his hand.
Yet even dressed in the refined splendor of a noble’s formalwear, this man could not conceal the terrifying ferocity he radiated.
That was the ferocity that could only be forged by walking out from a true mountain of corpses and sea of blood!
“But, dear guest, if I remember correctly, the Campbell family did not invite you. So why have you come uninvited?”
Lorne Campbell still wore a gentle smile, but his gaze was incomparably cold, as though he were looking at a dead woman.
“Now, tell me properly, especially the part about what you planned to do to my precious son.
I will most certainly... Listen! Very! Carefully!”
...
On the other side of the Duke’s manor, another figure dressed as a maid was also fleeing at full speed.
She was the other assassin, Number Six, who had sensed that things were going wrong and slipped away a step ahead of time.
“So this is 【Lion King】? How terrifying. Good thing I chose a different direction.”
Glancing at the dreadful aura erupting in the distance, a trace of lingering fear appeared in her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Number Eight. I can only let you serve as bait for me for now. I still can’t die.”
“O great King of Withering above, may your soul return forever to the red earth.”
After offering a brief prayer for Number Eight in her heart, Number Six endured the hollow weakness within her body and continued rushing toward the outside of the Duke’s manor as fast as she could.
...
“How strange. As a professional assassin, after failing a mission, shouldn’t you kill yourself to atone?”
Number Six’s pupils contracted sharply.
Her fleeing steps suddenly halted, and then, like a fish darting through water, her body twisted sharply through the air, narrowly evading the fierce cold glint that struck from an extremely tricky angle.
“Who’s there?”
Ignoring the burning pain left on her cheek by the cold flash, Number Six stared fixedly at the shadows not far away.
“Who am I? Heh, merely an ordinary maid of no consequence.”
A young woman in a black-and-white dress stepped out of the shadows.
A sudden bolt of lightning outside the window split the sky, illuminating Ann’s dignified profile.
“A maid?”
Wearing a maid outfit herself, Number Six let out a mocking laugh. “I’ve never seen such a terrifying maid.”
She lightly brushed a finger across her cheek, then placed it into her mouth and sucked on it.
Very quickly, the thick rusty tang of blood spread through her mouth.
Even though she had reacted in time to that strike, her head had almost been cut off.
The other woman was definitely no weakling!
And yet, strangely... she could not sense any aura from her at all.
It was as if she were nothing more than an ordinary person.
“There are many people in this world you haven’t seen. Just as I’ve never seen such useless assassins as you.” Ann’s tone was filled with deep regret.
“I had already leaked such important information, yet I never expected that what came would be trash like you.”
“What... Do you mean that?”
A chill rose involuntarily in Number Six’s heart.
“What do I mean?”
Ann suddenly widened her beautiful eyes.
Her dignified face now looked somewhat twisted and terrifying.
“You don’t even know what I mean? Do you have any idea just how useless you are?”
“What does that have to do with you? Aren’t you a maid of the Duke’s manor?”
“Heh, a maid. Of course I’m a maid. But you, you really are... truly too disappointing.”
Ann suddenly wrapped her arms around herself and lowered her head, letting out a pained moan, as though she were enduring some intense torment.
“We were only one step away, just one step away, from that bitch Selicia, who got close to Young Master Muen, leaving this world forever.”
Before Number Six’s horrified gaze, Ann gradually shed that eternally dignified expression.
Her breathing grew ragged, and then she smiled—a smile both savage and eerie.
“And yet you actually failed?”
“Failing would have been one thing, but you even injured Young Master Muen.”
“How could you... how could you hurt him? In this world, the only one allowed to hurt him—is me!”
BOOM!
Thunder crashed, drowning out Ann’s horrifying roar.
“Ah, no, this won’t do.”
Ann placed both hands over her face and slowly drew them downward.
That eerie, savage expression was gradually wiped away.
She became dignified and elegant once more.
“As Young Master Muen’s personal maid, how could I behave with such impropriety?”
Ann lowered her hands again, folded them neatly over her lower abdomen, and bowed politely to the trembling Number Six before her.
“Then allow me to see you on your way, esteemed guest.”
Behind Ann, countless exquisite little blades as thin as cicada wings slowly rose into the air.
Every one of them pointed at Number Six, each gleaming with a sharp, freezing light.